Grant of site for specified purposes — Purposes ceasing — Grantees’ fee simple in site determined — Reverter of site — Grantees claiming adverse possession — Proceeds of sale of land held by grantees’ successors — High Court holding that proceeds held on charitable trusts
The plaintiffs held the net proceeds of sale of the site of the former Kempston Up End School in Bedfordshire. In February 1975 the school was destroyed by fire and the plaintiffs also held insurance moneys paid out. It was decided not to rebuild the school. It had been established in 1854 as a Church of England school following the grant of the first of its component sites under section 2 of the School Sites Act 1841. Conveyances of the two adjoining sites followed for the same purposes. The last conveyance was in 1875. It was agreed that those purposes had ceased so that the grantees’ fee simple in the sites determined and that there was a reverter of the site in accordance with section 2. The first defendant was the Attorney-General who contended that the reverter occurred in 1876 when the school became a non-denominational “provided” school under the Elementary Education Act 1870. But he claimed that, since then, the grantees and their successors (including the plaintiffs) had acquired a title to the land by their continued and adverse possession of it and the plaintiffs now held the proceeds and insurance moneys on charitable trusts. The second defendant was the official solicitor who represented all those who might be entitled to the money by reason of the reverter. He contended that the reverter occurred no earlier than 1975. The third defendant was joined as someone who might have a claim by reason of the reverter, but she took no part in the proceedings.
Held The proceeds of sale and insurance moneys were held on charitable trusts of the 1854 deed.
1. Upon the school becoming a provided school, the trustees’ fee simple determined and the land reverted to those entitled to it under section 2 of the 1841 Act. The fact that thereafter the land remained available for Sunday school purposes, was not by itself sufficient to prevent the reverter.
2. However, despite such reverter, the minister and churchwardens thereafter remained in possession of the land by continuing to receive the rent paid in respect of it. There was no evidence that that was by the licence of the revertees or their successors and prima facie such possession was adverse.
3. Following the reverter in 1876 the then trustees and those successors continued to possess the land on the trusts of the 1854 deed. The recital by them in the various leases that they so held the land was correct. They could not properly have recited that they held the land on any other trusts. There was nothing in those recitals which was inconsistent with the title now asserted by the trustees or which amounted to an acknowledgement of the title of the revertees.
4. The substance of the matter was that the plaintiffs and their predecessors had been in possession of the land since 1876 and those whom the official solicitor represented were claiming to oust them. Proof of a part title which could be traced back to a reverter in 1876 was not, however, enough to achieve such an ouster. Prima facie the trustees’ subsequent possession had extinguished it. It was for those whom the official solicitor represented to prove that such possession had not extinguished it. They failed to do so.
Charles Turnbull (instructed by Lee Bolton & Lee) appeared for the plaintiffs; William Henderson (instructed by the Treasury Solicitor) appeared for the first defendant; Mark Blackett-Ord (instructed by the official solicitor) appeared for the second defendant; the third defendant did not appear and was not represented.